Bodie Pennisi and Paul Thomas promise purple hands, and it
won’t be due to the cold.

Those attending the “Plant Propagation from A to Z” seminar on
Jan. 25 in Athens can expect hands-on fun, and that includes
smashing berries for their seeds. The class may get messy, but
attendees will go home with useable skills, seeds and trays of
plant cuttings.

“The purpose of this workshop is to give the average person who
really loves plants the know-how to replicate them, to make
more of them,” said Thomas, an associate professor of
floriculture and Cooperative Extension specialist with the
University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences.

The workshop, coordinated by Pennisi, will be held from 8:25
a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at the Classic Center in downtown Athens
and covers the basics from seed to cuttings. Thomas started the
class in 1993 with 300 attendees, and Pennisi has successfully
enlarged the scope of the program over the last five years.

“We fill the room every session,” said Pennisi, a UGA Extension
floriculture specialist. “People really enjoy this workshop and
we have a great time sharing what we know.”

The speakers will start the workshop by boiling down the finer
points of using seeds. Every type of seed is different and has
different needs. Lettuce seeds, for example, can’t be buried,
Thomas said. For lettuce to germinate, the seeds must be placed
on top of the soil to get an adequate amount of sunlight and
moisture. Light triggers their germination.

A significant feature of the program is the great variety of
plants the attendees will take home.

“We run around the campus and the State Botanical Garden of
Georgia looking for native seeds,” Thomas said. “We also bring
in unusual tropical and herbaceous materials. We cover the
entire gamut.”

The fundamental principles of plant propagation will also be
covered at the workshop. Methods and techniques in rooting
perennials and woody plants and how to set up a successful
propagation program will be taught, too.

Workshop activities also include hands-on seed and woody plant
propagation. Thomas said the group will cut up oranges, smash
rotten fruit and smear berries to collect seeds and then learn
the proper way to take a plant cutting.

“We have them leave with several dozen cuttings to root out at
home,” he said. “It doesn’t end with this class. We give them
one heck of a homework job. They find out what it’s really like
to be a horticulturalist.”

Other workshop speakers from the University of Georgia include
horticulture greenhouse manager Pam Lewis.

For more information on the workshop, call (706) 632-0100.

(Stephanie Schupska is a news editor with the University of
Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)

(Stephanie Schupska is a news editor with the University of Georgia Public Affairs Office.)